Cognitive Psychology Essay Questions
Test your knowledge of Cognitive Psychology with these Essay style questions.
Questions
Describe what Loftus and Palmer’s Eye witness testimony study tells us about our cognitions.
Loftus and Palmer’s study tells us that our memory can be distorted after the event by the wording of questions. For example using an emotive verb like crashed led participants to believe that they had seen glass.
Describe what Gardner and Gardner’s Teaching a chimpanzee to speak study tells us about our cognitions.
Gardner’s study tells us about the origins of language. A chimpanzee was able to pick up basic language using operant conditioning. This supports the view that language is learnt rather than innate. It also tells us that a non-human species can pick up basic language.
Describe what Baron and Cohen’s Does the autistic child have a theory of mind study tells us about our cognitions.
Baron and Cohen’s study tells us about a theory of mind. Autistic children were significantly less able to correctly answer the false belief question than downs syndrome children. This tells us that a theory of mind is unrelated to intelligence and is something associated with autism.
Describe what Deregowski’s Pictorial Perception and Culture study tells us about our cognitions.
Deregowski showed us that perception of depth cues is dependent on education. It is learnt rather than innate. This was demonstrated by Deregowski’s reports that Africans did not understand western depth cues.
Describe 2 advantages and 2 disadvantages of the cognitive approach to psychology. Use examples to illustrate your points.
Advantage 1
P – Cognitive Psychology is very scientific
E –Baron and Cohen’s study is scientific. It is set in a laboratory and it is very controlled.
C – Being scientific increases Psychology’s status as a science
Advantage 2
P – Cognitive Psychology has practical applications
E – Loftus and Palmer’s study tells us that when interviewing witnesses we should be careful about the wording of the question as it can distort memory.
C – Practical applications justify time and money spent on research.
Disadvantage 1
P - Cognitive Psychology uses lots of lab research which is low in ecological validity.
E – Seeing car crashes on television in Loftus and Palmer’s study is a very different experience from seeing real car crashes
C – Low Ecological validity = Less easy to apply results to everyday life.
Disadvantage 2
P – Cognitive Psychology uses the case study method to look in more depth at cognition. The disadvantage here is that case studies lack generalisability
E- Gardner and Gardner’s research involved just one Chimpanzee. It is possible that this Chimpanzee was different to other Chimpanzees.
C-Case study information can only be applied to that participant and therefore findings are less applicable to the whole population = less useful
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